Dr Yara Sharif

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Senior Lecturer

Architecture and Cities

Switchboard: +44 (0)20 7911 5000
35 Marylebone Road
London
GB
NW1 5LS
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About me

Dr Yara Sharif is a Senior Lecturer and a practitioner with an interest in design as a mean to facilitate and empower “forgotten” communities, while also interrogating the relationship between politics and architecture. Combining research with design her work runs parallel between the architecture practice Golzari-NG Architects and the school of architecture at the University of Westminster. 

Sharif teaches across different courses. She co-leads Design Studio 22 (MArch Riba Part II). Sharif also teaches in MA Architecture as well as being part of the PhD supervisory team.

Sharif has co-founded Palestine Regeneration Team (PART). PART is a design-led research group that aims -- through speculative and live projects -- to search for creative and responsive spatial possibilities to heal the fractured landscape. 

Sharif’s work has won a number of awards including the RIBA’s President’s Award for Research 2016 on “Cities and communities” category. Sharif has also contributed to several collaborative projects with Palestinian NGO Riwaq which won the Holcim Commendation Award for Sustainable Construction in the MENA Region 2014 – Beit Iksa Eco Kitchen, and The Aga Khan Award for Architecture 2013 for the Regeneration of Birzeit Historic Centre.

Sharif's Doctorate Research which was later published in a book titled Architecture of Resistance, has won the RIBA President’s Award for Research for Outstanding PhD by Design Thesis 2013.

PUBLICATIONS

Sharif, Y. (August 2021) 'Soft Tactics: On liberating the mental space' in Journal of Visual Culture. Vol 20 (2). pp. 281-4. Available at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14704129211046141 

Golzar, N. and Sharif, Y. (2020) ‘Absurd-City, Subver-City’ in Sorkin, M. & Sharp, D. (eds) Open Gaza: Architectures of Hope. Cairo: American University Press.

Sharif, Y. (November, 2019) 'Landscape of Time and Immobility' in Landscape Research. Vol 44 (7). pp 872-91. [Tailor & Francis online]. Available at:  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01426397.2019.1623184

Sharif, Y (2017) Architecture of Resistance: Cultivating moments of possibility within the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. London: Routledge.

Sharif, Y. (2015) ‘Surface, Air, Underground’ in Khaldun Bshara & Saud Amiry (eds), Reclaiming Space: The 50 Villages project in rural Palestine, Ramallah: Riwaq.

Golzari, N. & Sharif, Y. (2015) ‘Searching for Sub-Urban Bridges in the Village of Beit Iksa, Jerusalem’ in Petrescu, D. and Trogal, K. The Social Reproduction of Architecture. London: Ashgate.

Golzari, N., & Sharif, Y. (2011). “Reclaiming space and identity: heritage-led regeneration in Palestine”. The Journal of Architecture. Vol.16 (1), pp.121-144.

Sharif, Y. (2009) “Towards an Invisible Ideology: Rethinking the Spatio-political Conditions of Palestine under Israeli Domination” in Propositions: Ideology in Transparency. Architecture Association Publications.

Publications

For details of all my research outputs, visit my WestminsterResearch profile.